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The Optimist

I know where I was the first time I heard about the Optimist Club. I was in an assembly in the gymnasium at Clarence Olsen Junior High School in Woodstock, IL and some local members had come to speak to us about optimism.

I thought they were ridiculous. The subject was too light for a bunch of kids in puberty. Too smiley. Too positive. In my 12 year old ways, too much optimism was, in a word, stupid. I’m pretty sure I made fun of them.

But they did leave me with a gift, and that was to consider optimism in life. And in times of darkness, I have.

The Optmists have a Creed. When I started writing this blog post, I decided to look it up. It is the following:

Cool, eh?

Mind Mapping Optimism

Lately, I’ve been using mind mapping more often in meetings to be sure that the flow of ideas that are coming get captured in a more organic way. With that in mind, I decided to take the idea of optimism and map it out to see where it goes and it turned out to look like this:

What do you see?

There is obviously a wheel, suggesting that optimism is a process.

There are also two sides, showing that there are at least two facets to optimism.

There are also many paths to optimism, showing activities, or the lack thereof. There is a suggestion that optimism takes practice.

Sleep is a consideration.

From a workplace perspective, there’s also benefit to optimism, from both the improved state of mind of the HR professional and the workforces impacted by HR.

Since I write to HR, for HR, I want you to think about that for a moment—being selfish for you for the benefit of others. Infectiousness.

Let me leave this right here. What goes around, comes around. If you want a more optimistic workforce, you have a responsibility to be more optimistic yourself. While it is still resolution season, give yourself this gift this year.

Looking for Inspiration?

For about two years, I’ve been a member of a LinkedIn group called HRPositive! The members are a bit like an optimist club for HR. In their words, “This is a place to feel good about your profession and the people in it!” You can find the group at: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8355569.